Who knew? Grey hair and wrinkles bring happiness.
Here's a discussion on the latest research claiming to show that, the older you get, the less you.. oh, I don't know... maybe the less you give a shit?
This I do know. With climate change and all its associated impacts, the other looming existential threats, overpopulation, over-consumption of essential resources, malignant wars seemingly without end and so on, the prospect of departing this mortal coil isn't quite as grim as it used to be.
UPDATE:
Friend Ray sent this along. I think you'll readily get his point.
Me old mum just moved out here from Regina. Almost every time we talk we reflect on what a good time it is to be approaching the terminal.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny you should mention this, Mound. I have had the same thought lately that the time during which I have lived will without question be better than the time that follow my departure.
ReplyDeleteYup. And it's a damned shame too. The dead can never atone to the living but, we're not dead yet and still cannot get behind the changes we need to make the future just as livable as it can be for those who follow. Poll after poll shows that we are not prepared to sacrifice for our grandkids and their kids. Too remote, too distant.
ReplyDeleteIs it likely those kids and grandkids will be any smarter about the planet than previous generations and we have been?
ReplyDeleteProbably not, they're still human beings. They'll screw up what they touch too. Become too casual with their nuclear generation...loose a gene edited virus intended to combat some disease carrying creature...cause the moon to implode as a result of trying to mine it...
I don't think we've been any smarter on these issues than our forebears and there's a very strong case to be made that we've been considerably stupider.
Forget it Jake, it's earth.
Most people won't sacrifice today for their own long term benefit. Why expect them to do so for future generations? Not going to happen.
ReplyDelete@ Toby
ReplyDeleteWe do not know how much time do we have left ;-)
A..non
@ A..non, Toby, Dana. I don't know if our grandkids will have the luxury of screwing up the planet as their predecessors did. We haven't really had a mass consciousness of climate change for much more than ten to fifteen years and, over that interval, most of the science we now rely upon has been generated.
ReplyDeleteThat said, our generation has had it very, very good. No Great Depression, no WWII, most of us never ever wore a uniform, we had a life of incomparable wealth and comfort. You could say the cruelty of life skipped a generation. Our kids and grandkids, however, won't be similarly spared. They'll have a very hard, even precarious time of it.
I know that cutting down on energy consumption, heating less, driving the most fuel-efficient cars and such is really more of a gesture than a solution but that's not the way to look at it. We're already at 1C. The atmospheric loading we've already emitted will, all of its own, up that to 1.5C which we're now coming to accept as the critical "never exceed" point. And so our individual emissions do matter for every tonne of greenhouse gas each individual emits goes straight atop that 1.5C limit.
We probably can't make our grandkids' future challenges much better but we can sure as hell make them worse.
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